The way celebrity entrepreneurs are depicted by the media doesn't illustrate what it's really like to start up and run businesses, according to a survey of small business owners and business advisers from Nottingham University Business School.

For the Q4 2009 editions of the UK Business Barometer (UKBB) and UK Business Advisers Barometer (UKBAB) surveys, three questions about the media's portrayal of enterprise and entrepreneurs were added and the results reveal some frustration from people running small businesses that media portrayals don't match their experiences and the challenges they face.

Scientists have known for more than a decade that galaxies in the early universe produced many more stars than galaxies today. But what has remained unknown is why. Now, researchers writing in a recent issue of Nature say they may have an explanation for this astronomical mystery.

"[T]hree to five billion years after the Big Bang...galaxies churned out new stars at a much faster rate than they do now," said Michael Cooper, a postdoctoral Spitzer fellow at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory.

Badly fitting condoms reduce sexual pleasure for both partners and may discourage men from using protection altogether, suggests a study published in Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The findings are based on a survey of 436 men between the ages of 18 and 67, all of whom were recruited via newspaper ads and a blog on the website of a condom sales company. Participants completed a questionnaire on the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction website about the fit of condom they had most recently used for penetrative sex with a female partner.

A new study by the Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center (OTRC) shows that concentrations of secondhand tobacco smoke inhaled in smoking rooms of restaurants and bars are exceptionally high and hazardous to health. The authors of the report say the findings justify making all public places smoke free - or ignoring private property rights and treating adults like helpless children.

According to the study, the average particulate level measured in restaurant smoking rooms was beyond the hazardous extreme based on levels established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The level found in bars was even worse.

DNA analysis of royal mummies suggest that malaria and bone abnormalities may have contributed to the death of Egyptian pharaoh King Tutankhamun, with other results appearing to identify members of the royal family, including King Tut’s father and mother, according to a new study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association. The findings may lead to a new way of researching the molecular genealogy and pathogen paleogenomics of the Pharaonic era, perhaps even a new field called 'molecular Egyptology.'

The diversity of corals harboring unusual species of symbiotic algae in the warm waters of the Andaman Sea indicates that coral reefs and the ecosystems dependent on them may persist despite climate change, according to a new study in the Journal of Biogeography. 

The researchers say the comprehensive survey, which included analysis of the corals and symbiotic algae living in the cooler western Indian Ocean and Great Barrier Reef area of Australia, is unparalleled by any other study.

I was asked the question, "What can we expect to see from science in the next decade?" My answer comes from the perspective of a social scientist, as I research social problems from the influence of cognitive neuroscience. I am inspired to write this particular analysis after attending the TED 2010 conference, which wrapped up this past weekend in Long Beach, CA.

Some of you may ask, "What is TED? And how does it relate to science in the next decade?"

Pegasus - A Load Of Horse Feathers?


Evolution proceeds by producing variants of a life-form which may, or may not, thrive in their current environment.  An interesting question arises: "In an alternate history of Earth, could horses have evolved feathers?"


Image source: Wikimedia, public domain.